Facebook accused of creating profiles of non-users

Facebook is now building profiles of non-users who haven't even signed up to the social networking site, it has emerged. The claim has been made in a complaint filed in August by Ireland's Data Protection Commissioner.

It alleges that users are encouraged to hand over the personal data of other people including names, phone numbers, email addresses and more, which Facebook uses to create "extensive profiles" of non-users.

"Facebook Ireland is gathering excessive amounts of information about data subjects without notice or consent by the data subject," the complaint said. It added that in many cases the information "might be embarrassing or intimidating for the data subject. The information might also constitute sensitive data such as political opinions, religious or philosophical beliefs, sexual orientation and so forth."

Facebook, however, categorically denied the allegations, Fox News reports. "The allegations are false. We enable you to send emails to your friends, inviting them to join Facebook. We keep the invitee's email address and name to let you know when they join the service," said Facebook spokesman Andrew Noyes.

"This practice is common among almost all services that involve invitations from document sharing to event planning," he said. "The assertion that Facebook is doing some sort of nefarious profiling is simply wrong," Noyes added.